A Book from Stone

 

Well, not really. But sometimes it feels that way.

I keep the blog to amass poems. Publishing online keeps me at it; knowing that there are readers out there gives me impetus. 

There comes a point when I have to decide there's enough to carve out a collection; I've been deferring; editing is a chore and there is a serious amount of editing to be done to re-shape these poems for a book publication. But now is the time. I have about six years of material, poems that have been produced like diary entries. I will disregard about 80% of them and spend, perhaps a year, maybe more, getting the rest into a shape that I am happy to have representing me. Somehow a book seems to demand a level of care that the blog doesn't; I  hope that's isn't an insult to regular readers.

I mention it because, though I do post newer drafts of poems on the blog, there'll be more now as I rework the pieces. I don't tend to get feedack but feel free if you feel the urge; for now, though, I have to address this chunk of stone.

 

Bog

 

Bog

Sinking into the soft mire, spagnum sponge;

ooze rising inches above my feet: beer brown,

freezing cold. I take a handful and squeeze;

water, so much water drains through my fingers;

I slap away the fresh vegetation; hold my hands

to my nose, am filled with the smell of fertile earth.

Heathers, mosses, sedge and bog cotton;

a wilderness, once a lake, its margins still visible:

green fields and farm houses away in the distance:

Here, in the realm of insects, plants that devour them,

sundews and butterworts, their killer genes expressed

in the mucillage, tentacles, in the traps of their leaves.

And down, down beneath my feet, rich black turf:

countless years of heat, insulation: walls and roofing;

from bountiful earth fuel from the growth of millennia.

There too, the preserved remains of the past: old roads,

wooden tracks, submerged walls, jewelery, weapons, tools;

bodies wearing facial expressions that have defied time.